


The unbearable discomfort of living

by Ann7121



Category: Blake's 7
Genre: Gen, Naughty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-29
Updated: 2021-01-29
Packaged: 2021-03-15 09:56:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,305
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29062452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ann7121/pseuds/Ann7121
Summary: The truth behind Avon’s deteriorating mental state during season D revealed for the first time.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 5





	The unbearable discomfort of living

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you Moon_Disk. I have shamelessly purloined your idea and had such fun with it.

Avon checked through the drawers and shelves in Dorian’s closet with a growing sense of melancholy. Of course. Inevitable, really, the way his luck was turning out. He reached in his pocket, extracting a small tube, and then, resignedly, made his way to the adjacent bathroom, carrying the pile of clothes he’d already discovered hanging on the rails. 

After some time, he emerged, armoured in leather and slightly more comfortable, but in no way relishing the tasks that lay ahead. Especially without Cally. 

Several minor concussions and painful falls later, he found himself facing Pella on the flight deck of Scorpio, marvelling that the silly woman would assume that she was capable of causing him any more discomfort with her telekinetic nonsense than he was currently experiencing. Killing her brought a brief flare of emotional satisfaction but little physical relief.

“For goodness sake, stop prowling around and sit down, “ Dayna complained, when the crew gathered in the rec room on Xenon base to watch him press the button that would obliterate Dorian’s cellar. Avon ignored her, only to regret it when the resulting explosion deposited him on the floor. Vila, who had got up to get himself another bottle of wine, fared no better, falling even more heavily. 

“Farewell one creepy basement,” he said cheerily, leaping to his feet and flinging himself onto one of the couches. Avon was unable to disguise a slight wince as he watched. “Come and join me, Avon, old Pal,” he slurred, patting the couch.

“I prefer to stand.” Avon glared at them all, with his best, glacial expression, daring further comment. 

Getting ready to sleep that night, Avon ruefully examined the large blue bruise that had blossomed on his posterior, as he removed his underwear with a gusty sigh of relief. Somewhat surprisingly, he then donned a pair of studded gloves before gingerly lowering himself, naked, onto the bed. “Oh Cally,” he muttered, arranging himself into a position which, if not comfortable, was at least not agonising. He dozed fitfully and woke in a foul temper that didn’t improve over the weeks that followed.

“Are you hurt?” Soolin bent solicitously over the prone Vila, who had just completed a spectacular head roll across Scorpio’s deck before landing on his bottom with a resounding thump. Avon got painfully to his feet, watching in disbelief as Vila, after accepting a pull up from Soolin, came close to him, apparently unaffected by his heavy fall, and said, “Look, Avon, I know I suggested it, but I told you it wouldn't work, not under these conditions.”

Several hours later, Avon was forced to sit at one of Scorpio’s excruciatingly uncomfortable stations in order to monitor Dr Plaxton’s efforts to install her stardrive. The venom with which he hissed, “Who?” following her dramatic demise, afforded some release of his pent-up tension if not, well it was more than discomfort these days, his pain! 

God he hated sand. And heat. And fluffy women who turned out to be merciless assassins. He’d watched the approach of the clicking bug with mixed feelings - his will to survive battling with his relief that this would finish it for good. Returning to Xenon, he had ensconced himself in his on-suite, only to discover that, try as he might, the little tube he carried with him at all times was completely empty. No amount of squishing and pinching could extract even a sliver of the salve his sanity depended on. He would probably have surrendered there and then to complete madness if he hadn’t recalled one of Cally’s sayings, with a rush of uncharacteristic gratitude and sense of loss: “A man who bathes in ice cold water may find his pride shrivelling but the relief it brings is worth the price.” Fortunately Xenon was well supplied with icy torrents. His earlier explorations, and the events with the headless robot, had been useful in that respect. 

“Are you putting on weight?” Avon looked up from his conjectures with his probability square over to where Dayna was, as usual, bullying a pathetically huddled Vila. The thief did appear to have changed shape. It was as if all his fat had slipped to around his hip area. Something, now he thought about it, he’d noticed as far back as Terminal but not given any importance. Avon’s self -esteem, at an all time low following the twin humiliations of his defeat by Belkov and the loss of the Xerox gold, was somewhat boosted by having Virn’s vampire sand recognise him as the ship’s dominant male. He found himself less chaotically emotional and thinking more clearly, even if the source of much of his unease remained unchanged. Needing distraction, and spurred on by anger that Tarrant had been intimate with his dearest enemy, he focused hard on the mystery of Vila’s changing shape. In the middle of the night, he suddenly sat straight up and announced, “So that’s it. The crafty, little...”

“Vila weighs 73 kilos Avon.”

Yes, and Avon knew why. He’d planned to bring matters to a head on the shuttle by confronting Vila, but the current crisis had changed priorities. Yet he hesitated to act, even as he reached for the gun he had hidden. If he ejected Vila from the ship he would lose... ah well, better that than dying he supposed. Marginally better. 

He was relieved to find the block of neutron material.

Back on Xenon, he ignored Vila’s plaintively angry glances and waited until the dead of night. Then he crept, gun in hand, to the thief’s bedroom and laid an implacable hand on the sleeping man’s shoulder. 

“What... wassa? What’s happening?” Vila stuttered blearily into life, the empty wine bottle he was clutching falling on to the floor and rolling noisily under the bed frame. Even in the dim light, it was possible to discern that his posterior was unfeasibly plump and swollen.

“I’ve worked out why you take so many tumbles and yet remain unbruised!” Avon explained with menace. “Hand them over!”

“Chaffing getting to you?” Vila mocked.

“You have no idea. Divest yourself of all those underpants forthwith or live to regret it.”

Vila looked into the wild eyes of his leader, gulped, and, without further ado stood up and peeled pant after pant from his bottom until he stood with just a single, comfy pair covering his family jewels.

“I can keep this pair, can’t I Avon?” he pleaded. “Just the one. You've no way of knowing what adventures these have seen!”

Avon shuddered, greed warring with disgust. Without responding, he gather up the pile of underpants and raced from the room.

“That’s a yes, then,” Vila muttered. He’d have to work out a way of stealing them back as soon as possible. 

The application of soft, natural materials to his nether regions greatly improved Avon’s temper - even the War Lord fiasco didn’t faze him too badly, and he had the satisfaction of watching Tarrant’s latest romantic venture end in tears. And then, in the excitement of leaving Xenon, he unwittingly donned, what proved, indisputably, as he raced about the rough terrain of Gauda Prime, to be nylon fibre pants. Vila had managed to substitute them for the loose cotton ones that had added such a blissful level of comfort to Avon’s otherwise harsh existence. 

“Wear those, you bastard. Payment for Malador,” he’d whispered as he made the switch; something he later regretted as he watched an Avon, chafed beyond bearing, and maddened by the overwhelming need to itch, proceed to gun down his former leader and friend. “No deed goes unpunished in the world of Blake’s 7,” Vila reflected as the strobing lights faded to black.

Surrounded by Federation troops and dead or dying crew mates, Avon raised his gun. At last the torment would end. He smiled beatifically as the shots rang out.


End file.
